If you would’ve told yourself ten years ago that such a conference existed, would you have believed it?
It existing is another reason I feel like I got into the industry at an incredible moment.
-Text from Josie Norris, my former colleague at the San Antonio Express-News when I told them about this conference
“Too close? That ship had sailed”:
Journalists who stayed in Uvalde
Lisa Krantz
PhD candidate, University of Missouri
Fall 2024: Assistant professor, University of Montana
Case Study:
The mass shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas on May 24, 2022.
Framework: An ethic of empathy (Blank-Libra, 2017)
“An ethic of empathy, deliberately employed by journalists, creates work that connects reporters, readers and sources to their humanity and thus to each other and their environment.
Journalists should not allow the prospect of a compassionate response to be disquieting when compassion is the appropriate human response” (Blank-Libra, 2017, p. 2).
Previous literature shows more negative than positive experiences with journalists after mass shootings (Massé, 2011; Simpson & Coté, 2006; Walsh-Childers et al., 2011), but less explores how trust and relationships are built between victims’ families, survivors, and community members in the months after mass shootings for in-depth, immersive, and intimate storytelling beyond the breaking news headlines.
RQ: How were trust and relationships built between journalists and victims’ families, survivors, and community members in the months after the shooting at Robb Elementary, and what was the result?
Photos by Tamir Kalifa/NYT
“Everyone always says you don't get too close. But I had no other option. I mean, that was my job. I had to get too close. And I learned who they were. And I learned that I liked them so much as people that they’re people I want to be in touch with for the rest of my life.
Emotionally? Emotionally that ship had sailed. I was emotionally too close. I mean. Yeah. I mean, there was no getting around it.”
-Ish, ABC News producer who lived in Uvalde for the year
Findings
Tamir Kalifa, NYT
“Care and empathy and compassion is sort of like the trifecta, but there would be nothing without patience. And I think that that all of those elements together can be extraordinarily illuminating.”
-Tamir Kalifa, Austin-based freelance photojournalist for the NYT
Emotional impact of getting “too close” or covering story regularly
Several journalists were diagnosed with PTSD during and after, including 3 out of 4 interviews one weekend.
One described not being able to get out of bed due to depression, one described night terrors.
Several began medication for depression and/or anxiety.
Several journalists sought therapy for the first time.
Almost all became visibly or audibly emotional during our interview.
Mental health resources were more available for broadcast than print journalists.
Life long relationships.
The most fulfilling journalism of their lives.
Once you're in these rooms, and you're really sitting with it, you're really challenged, you know, these are the extremes of the human condition that we're experiencing here and witnessing and wrestling with.
I think that really takes people by surprise sometimes. And I think that we spend so much time building these sort of emotional and professional defenses, that when we're really confronted with grief of this magnitude, we realize that that we are powerless to, almost powerless, I think to stop the flood of emotions that that comes from documenting something like this and bearing witness to it (T. Kalifa, personal communication, May 5, 2024).